Monday, October 01, 2007

Last evening, I learned that our friends Bob and Ellie Tupper had recently posted this website update concerning their Odyssean journey:

We wish we had good news to report, but the fact we haven't posted any news here lately speaks volumes.

It has been much harder than we anticipated to find a brewer for our beers, but we continue to explore options. In part we are a victim of the success of the craft beer movement. Sales are so strong at craft breweries that they are reluctant to commit to fill tanks with our beer when they may need those tanks for their own. If we were either much smaller or much bigger, it would be easier to find a solution.

Still, someone somewhere with a brewery and a skilled brewer is going to want to take advantage of the opportunity to sell a couple thousand barrels of excellent beer. An economist friend of mine says he has never seen a situation where demand could be proved and supply not found. When we do make the shift, our distribution network will actually be larger than it was at the height of our relationship with Old Dominion.

And for those of you in Maryland and the District: Because we have not joined the A-B distribution network we have had to seek new distribution channels in these areas. We have agreements with distributors, but we still have more paperwork to do before the beer will return. We hope to have those issues solved in a few weeks, but we've learned to stop making promises about things we can't control.

Old Dominion will continue to produce both beers through December and it's still pretty easy to find in Northern Virginia. We're hoping we'll have some good news for you before then.